Cultura in the modern city 31

CULTURA IN THE MODERN CITY: THE MICROGEOGRAPHIES OF

GENDER, CLASS, AND GENERATION IN THE COSTA RICAN PLAZA

Setha M. Low
City University of New York United States of America

Abstract: This article examines the microgeographies of everyday life in Parque

Central and Plaza de la Cultura, two plazas located in the central city of San Jos,
Costa Rica. These locales are created by the individual temporal and spatial attributes
of plaza users whose daily movements and activities define these spaces. The growing
differences of these locales in terms of the users class, gender, and age, and their
corresponding social activities, is reinforced by differences in local interpretations of
the concept of cultura. These social, behavioral, and ideological differences have
created spatial boundaries such that people do not cross from one locale to the other,
the users do not overlap, and their representations of cultural life are seen as
competitive and mutually exclusive. Based on ethnographic evidence, I suggest that
this differentiation is a constructed spatial representation that symbolizes the changing
nature of Costa Rican ideology and culture. The contrasting and often conflicting
images of the two plazas reflect important differences in class-orientation, gender
participation, and generational values that separate contemporary Costa Ricans
socially, and politically. In San Jos, Costa Rica, cultura is often discussed as a value
from the past, a cultural ideal that is desired, but that conflicts with aspects of modern
life. In order to discuss how cultura remains a cultural theme in the urban plaza the
everyday life and social behaviors of Parque Central and Plaza de la Cultura are
compared. In this comparison time, space, and social activity change the meaning
and interpretation of cultura reinforcing the contrasting metaphors expressed in the
physical design of each.

Keywords: class, cultura/culture, gender, plazas, public space, spatial analysis.

Resumo: Este artigo examina as microgeografias cotidianas no Parque Central e na

Praa da Cultura, duas praas localizadas no centro da cidade de So Jos, Costa
Rica. Estas localidades so criadas por atributos temporais e espaciais individuais
dos usurios da praa cujas atividades e movimentos dirios define este espao. As
crescentes diferenas destes locais em termos de seus usurios, classes, gneros e
idade, bem como de suas correspondentes atividades sociais, so reforadas pelas

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32 Setha M. Low

diferenas das interpretaes locais do conceito de cultura. Estas diferenas sociais,

comportamentais e ideolgicas criaram limites espaciais de tal maneira que as pessoas
no cruzam de um local para outro; os usurios no se justapem, e suas representaes
de vida cultural expressam a competio e a excluso. Baseada em evidncia
etnogrfica, sugiro que esta diferenciao uma representao espacial construda
que simboliza a natureza cambiante da ideologia e da cultura costarriquenha. As
imagens contrastantes e freqentemente conflitivas das duas praas refletem
importantes diferenas de orientao de classe, identificao de gnero e valores
geracionais que separam os costarriquenhos contemporneos do ponto de vista social
e poltico. Em So Jos, Costa Rica, a cultura aparece com freqncia nos discursos
como um valor do passado, um ideal cultural desejado, mas que entra em conflito com
aspectos da vida moderna. Para discutir como a cultura permanece como um tema
cultural na praa urbana, o cotidiano e os comportamentos sociais no Parque Central
e na Praa da Cultura so comparados. Nesta comparao, tempo, espao e atividade
social mudam o significado e a interpretao de cultura, reforando as metforas
contrastantes que vo expressas no desenho fsico de cada um.

Palavras-chave: anlise de espao, classe, cultura, espao pblico, gnero, praas.

This article examines the microgeographies of everyday life in Parque

Central and Plaza de la Cultura, two plazas located in the central city of San
Jos, Costa Rica. These locales are created by the individual temporal and
spatial attributes of plaza users whose daily movements and activities define
these spaces. As Alan Pred has demonstrated:

Since each of the actions and events consecutively making up the existence of an
individual has both temporal and spatial attributes, time-geography allows that
the biography of a person may be conceptualized and diagrammed at daily or
lengthier scales of observation as an unbroken continuous path through time-
space subject to times of constraint. In time-geographic terms a project consists
of the entire sequence of simple or complex tasks necessary to the completion of
any intention-inspired or goal-oriented behavior. (Pred, 1984, p. 256).

The paths and projects of individual plaza users are presented as a series
of population counts, movement maps, and behavioral maps organized by time
and day within each plaza. The overlap of the movement and behavior maps
combined with ethnographic description identify a series of distinct locales that
are defined by class, age, and gender.

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Cultura in the modern city 33

The growing differences of these locales in terms of the users class,

gender, and age, and their corresponding social activities, is reinforced by
differences in local interpretations of the concept of cultura. These social,
behavioral, and ideological differences have created spatial boundaries such
that people do not cross from one locale to the other, the users do not overlap,
and their representations of cultural life are seen as competitive and mutually
exclusive.
Based on ethnographic evidence, I suggest that this differentiation is a
constructed spatial representation that symbolizes the changing nature of Costa
Rican ideology and culture. The contrasting and often conflicting images of the
two plazas reflect important differences in class-orientation, gender participation,
and generational values that separate contemporary Costa Ricans socially, and
politically. These differences can be understood through the use of Richardsons
concept of cultura in the plaza and Costa Ricans ongoing public discourse
about culture.
In his study of the plaza in Cartago, Costa Rica, Miles Richardson (1978,
1980) is able to link phenomenologically different places by contrasting the
cultural importance of being proper in the plaza with being smart in the
marketplace.

The terms, cultura (culture) and progreso (progress), which appear frequently in
the conversations of people talking about the qualities of life in small
Spanish-American towns, come close to expressing the contrast. Cultura is the
victory of Spanish-American civilization over nature and over the bestial aspects
of human behavior. The plaza, by its very greenery and by its behavior, leisurely
strolling under the trees, epitomizes cultura. (Richardson, 1980, p. 226).

He resolves the different images of public life as being separated, yet

integrated, by space and experience. Miles Richardson is concerned with how
we know how to behave and experience places differently while maintaining a
sense of continuity of the experiential world.
This article expands Richardsons analysis of the plaza as a place of
cultura by comparing the two central plazas, located a block away from one
another, as different and competing expressions of cultura in San Jos. The
ethnographic examples illustrate the way in which differences in users, social
activities, built environment, and symbolic intentions reinforce the contrast
between the two places. I argue that it is the difference between the plazas and

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34 Setha M. Low

between the users and their activities that constructs the perceived boundaries
between the two places, and that these spatial boundaries mark social and
political locales which have become naturalized and concretized over time.
Even though they are located almost next to one another, they represent distinct
facets of Costa Rican culture--the traditional, Spanish, hierarchical,
predominantly older male, Catholic culture of the past; contrasted to the modern,
younger, male and female, North American culture of the present. Although
symbolic elements of each force their way into both plazas, the hegemony of
the traditional or the modern ideology of cultura remains. Yet the class and
culture tensions, and fears about social contact and public expression, continue
unresolved highlighting the political nature of these cultural expressions.
In San Jos, Costa Rica, cultura is often discussed as a value from the
past, a cultural ideal that is desired, but that conflicts with aspects of modern
life. In order to discuss how cultura remains a cultural theme in the urban plaza
the everyday life and social behaviors of Parque Central and Plaza de la
Cultura are compared. In this comparison time, space, and social activity change
the meaning and interpretation of cultura reinforcing the contrasting metaphors
expressed in the physical design of each.

Rhythms of everyday life

Three specific kinds of data were collected and analyzed to describe
everyday plaza life: population counts by gender on a typical (not a holiday or
rainy day) week-day and Sunday, movement maps by gender at two hour intervals
on a typical day, and behavioral maps of group activities by time and place.
These counts and maps provide quantitative data and physical evidence of plaza
users activities supplementing interpretations made based on qualitative sector
observations, participant observation, and unstructured interviewing. Taken
together, these data identify the locales, paths, and projects that mediate the
actions of individual plaza users with the social structural differences and spatial
boundaries observed between the two plazas. Thus, individuals produce these
social and spatial boundaries by their everyday plaza routines and practices.

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Cultura in the modern city 35

Population counts
The plazas were counted in fifteen minute intervals alternating between
fifteen minutes before and fifteen minutes after the hour in each. Counts were
recorded on a clipboard, transferred to a summary sheet, and then added together
by category to complete the analysis. Two people counted at a time, one
recording women and the other recording men whenever possible. The results
are presented in the following series of population count charts and compared
by day of the week and by plaza.
In Parque Central there is so much activity on Sunday that it is hard to
see any pattern other than differences in the number and location of men and
women. Men and women are spatially separated into distinct concentric rings,
with women usually seated and men standing (see Plan of Parque Central,
Map 1). On Sundays at 10:00 a.m. the band plays drawing a large crowd of
men, women, and children who stand on the kiosk or sit on benches to listen.
Sunday morning is the only time when there are a large number of people
there, yet compared to the crowd at 4:00 p.m., there are still fewer women
and children present: 30% women at 10:00 a.m. compared to 34% women at
4:00 p.m, and 16% children in the morning compared to 23% children at 4:00
p.m.(See Table 1).

Table 1. Parque Central Sunday, August 3, 1986

AGE 0-12 10-19 20-39 40-59 60-79+ TOTALS

Gender
8:00 am 2 4 5 16 14 8 35 7 15 7 71 35
10:00 am 18 24 7 19 36 50 149 32 92 7 302 132
12:00 am 4 10 8 18 23 17 37 4 25 1 97 50
2:00 pm 14 9 27 42 49 30 49 19 7 4 146 104
4:00 pm 24 27 27 28 165 69 70 31 20 1 306 156

6:00 pm 5 12 4 12 36 34 46 15 13 0 104 73
Totals 1026 557

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36 Setha M. Low

The total number of people in Parque Central on a Sunday, is twice that

of a week-day, composed of families and couples, rather than single males:
35% women on Sunday as compared to 20% women during the week (See
Tables 1 & 2). Children (ages 0-12) make up 10% of the population on Sunday,
compared to 3% during the week, while teen-agers and children together (ages
0-19) make up 23% of the Sunday population, and only 6% on a week day. The
Sunday crowd also fluctuates widely reflecting the presence or absence of
local entertainment such as the band playing or the soccer man bouncing a
ball with his head that attracts spectators (See Table 1). On Sunday there are
women in the park throughout the day, making up as much as 40% of the total
population at 2:00 p.m (See Table 1). During the week, on the other hand, most
women are at home or work in the morning, and do not go out until after the
main noon meal is served. There is a steady increase in the proportion of women
users throughout the day with the largest number of women (37%) present at
6:00 p.m. (See Table 2).

Table 2. Parque Central Thursday, July 31, 1986

AGE 0-12 10-19 20-39 40-59 60-79+ TOTALS

Gender
8:00 am 0 0 1 0 22 3 35 0 36 1 94 4
10:00 am 3 3 0 1 31 9 43 3 53 0 130 16
12:00 am 2 1 1 2 34 12 85 11 41 4 163 30
2:00 pm 4 4 5 4 21 8 79 15 26 5 135 36
4:00 pm 4 5 3 8 12 15 75 9 32 1 126 38

6:00 pm 1 6 3 0 60 29 27 13 14 4 105 62
Totals 753 176

Plaza de la Cultura is spatially organized quite differently from the

concentric circles of separated men and women in Parque Central (see Plan
of Plaza de la Cultura, Map 2). Instead people arrange themselves in a series
of tiers from the most visually exposed to least visually exposed: the most exposed
is highest tier next to the National Theater and the Gran Hotel, the second is the

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Cultura in the modern city 37

transitional space between the main plaza and the lower level, and the third is
the grassy area in front of the lower area where the tourist office, art gallery,
and gold museum are located. The first tier is made up of families, single men
and women, and couples; the second, middle-aged and older men; and the third,
young single men. Edge zones are particularly important and desirable, especially
along the railings and on the pipe benches. The edge along Central Avenue is
dominated by teen-agers at night, but during the day the composition of who
occupies it often changes.
There is also a clear pattern of sun and shade distribution of users and
spectators. On sunny days girls and women eat their lunches sitting in the
shade of the fringe of trees along the side of the National Theater, while men
stand under the trees in the area in front of the National Theater. Students in
uniforms, both male and female, and some men reading papers occupy the
small bench seats in the shade of the fig trees along the shopping arcade. Only
young men sit on the sunny benches along the back ledge watching those cross
the plaza.

Table 3. Plaza de la Cultura Sunday, August 3, 1986

AGE 0-12 13-19 20-39 40-59 60-79+ TOTALS

Gender
8:00 am 1 2 2 3 2 5 0 2 0 1 5 13
10:00 am 3 4 2 7 7 6 2 0 2 0 16 17
12:00 am 11 15 4 7 5 18 4 4 0 0 24 44
2:00 pm 8 13 12 12 17 12 7 2 2 0 46 39
4:00 pm 13 14 26 26 30 19 3 8 3 1 75 68

6:00 pm 21 19 30 36 16 14 5 10 4 1 76 80
Totals 753 176

On Sundays Plaza de la Cultura is used by more women than men (52%

women overall) even in the early morning (See Table 3). Children under 12
years of age make up 25% of the total population, and teen-agers from ages 13
to 19 make up another 33%. This unusual population pattern of 52% women

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38 Setha M. Low

and 53% teen-agers and children on Sundays, compared to 35% women and
12% teen-agers and children on week days, provides further evidence that the
plaza is perceived as an appropriate and comfortable place for families, and
even more importantly, mothers and children to relax and play when they have
leisure time (See Tables 3 and 4).
On week days the most dramatic change in population composition is the
appearance of mothers and children in the afternoon (See Table 4). Mothers
are free after lunch and their young children are out of school, so they bring
them to play in the fountain, chase the pigeons, and then sit on the shaded
benches and planter ledges. By 6:00 p.m., on a beautiful evening, Plaza de la
Cultura is full of people. On the lowest tier next to the tourist office, couples
sit and hold hands, while a young adult crowd fills the second and intermediate
levels. On the main plaza, teen-agers gather along the planter edge: boys play
soccer interrupted by flirting with girls or sing accompanied by a blaring radio.
Other young people fill the fountain edges, and a few older men and couples
remain seated under the fig trees. The population counts reflect these changes:
the largest percentage of women and children (46%) can be found at 2:00 p.m.,
but the plaza remains 37% female even at 6:00 p.m.

Table 4. Plaza de la Cultura Thursday, July 31, 1986

AGE 0-12 13-19 20-39 40-59 60-79+ TOTALS

Gender
8:00 am 0 2 0 0 10 2 9 0 2 1 21 5
10:00 am 0 4 9 7 9 2 13 4 10 1 41 18
12:00 am 0 3 0 2 51 19 16 3 4 0 71 27
2:00 pm 8 12 4 5 25 15 7 7 6 3 50 42
4:00 pm 8 8 11 7 18 9 10 5 2 0 49 29

6:00 pm 6 7 27 17 32 15 4 3 2 0 71 42
Totals 303 163

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Cultura in the modern city 39

The population patterns found in Plaza de la Cultura are not unlike that
of Parque Central except that there are many more women and teen-agers
and children on a week day afternoon and on Sunday. In Parque Central the
percentage of women and children increases on Sunday, but not to the degree
of Plaza de la Cultura, since it is still perceived as the domain of men and
workers. The total population of Plaza de la Cultura is also much smaller, only
a third of the number of people counted at Parque Central on Sunday (503
compared to 1576), and half of the number of people counted in Parque Cen-
tral on a week day (466 compared to 939).
Overall, then, Parque Central retains the largest number of people, both
on Sundays and on week days, while Plaza de la Cultura has the highest
percentage of women, teen-agers and children both during the week and on the
week-end. Based solely on the population counts, gender and age differences
by day and time define the two public spaces.

Movement maps
Pedestrian movement in the two plazas is another way to describe the
rhythms of everyday life. Movement maps were created by recording the
pathway of each pedestrian during a fifteen minute or thirty minute observation
period. Vicky Wulff Risner, a dance ethnologist at the Library of Congress,
worked with me to develop a simplified system of notation based on her extensive
research experience recording dance in its cultural context. She worked out a
system that recorded pathways used as well as gender and estimated ages of
the observed pedestrians. The entrances were rotated throughout the observation
period, and notes were made of who was sitting in the plaza at the time and
other significant behavioral details (e.g. the pedestrian shakes another mans
hand as he walks through).
Movement maps were collected from 8:00 a.m to 6:00 p.m. in both plazas.
Maps 3, 4, and 5 record observations in Parque Central on Thursday, July 31,
1986, a day that started out cloudy and damp, but became sunny in the afternoon.
At 8:00 a.m. a few men were moving from northwest to east, and east to west
and southwest, while only two women, a young woman and an elderly woman
in a couple, journey in a southernly route across the park. By 10:00 a.m. more
people are crossing and circling moving from the northwestern to eastern
pathway that faces the Cathedral. There are still more men than women, and

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40 Setha M. Low

only men are exiting at the southwestern corner (See Map 3). By noon the
direction of movement shifts significantly as the majority of people exit at the
southwestern corner: these seem to be men and a few women catching the
buses home that stop along Fourth Avenue (See Map 4). The afternoon is the
busiest time with many more women moving through, mostly in an eastern to
southwestern direction. Between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. the flow of people reversing
their morning journey reaches its peak. People exit both east and west, but the
western exit is used predominately by young men going to the bars located on
the western-northwestern edge of the park (See Map 5).
The movement maps from Wednesday, June 18, 1986 on the Plaza de la
Cultura, Maps 6, 7, and 8 record a similar pattern with an increase in activity
from the morning to the early afternoon. There is one popular pedestrian pathway
from the southwest corner near the entrance to the Gran Hotel and the National
Theater to the northeast corner on Central Avenue that is used as a shortcut by
people moving in either direction (See Map 6). At 4:00 p.m., however, there is
a lull when a sudden rain storm temporarily stops all activity. Only four young
men venture out into the rain during the half hour observation period (See Map
7). But by 6:00 p.m. activity has picked up again. A secondary pathway from
northwest to southeast emerges with men walking in either direction, from Pops
ice cream store on Central Avenue (northwestern corner) to the lower level of
the plaza and Second Avenue where there is a bus stop that services the eastern
part of the city (See Map 8).
Comparing the movement maps of Parque Central and Plaza de la Cul-
tura adds another dimension to the way in which the spaces are used and
experienced differently. The maps describe rivers of movement that make
up time-geography paths, segregated for the most part into male and female
spheres. When integrated with participant observation field notes and
photographs of people walking, the movement maps indicate that there are two
major types of people in each plaza: those who are traveling through the space;
and those who have taken up residence by sitting on a bench or leaning on a
wall. Many people move from one category to another, of course, but overall
there seems to a residential and a transient population on both plazas.
What is noteworthy, however, is the manner in which the two groups interact
with each other, which is different in each plaza. In Plaza de la Cultura,
people take up residency in large part to watch the non-residents and other
residents move through the rivers and along the paths. In Parque Central,

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Cultura in the modern city 41

however, the residents much are less interested in the non-residents who move
through the space. This difference in group interaction illustrates a kind of
closed-society versus open-society behavioral ecology. Parque Central
with its internally focused groups of men, talking and reading and not necessarily
interacting with passers-by, could be characterized as a closed-society, socially
and spatially bounded by cultural rules and notions of tradition and costumbre
(custom). Plaza de la Cultura, on the other hand, consists of outwardly focused
groups of men and women, who are constantly looking around, talking to passers-
by, and frequently break out of the group to meet someone or to join another
group.
The design of the Plaza de la Cultura certainly reinforces this openness
and increases the possibilities of interacting across groups; while the shaded,
enclosed corners of the pre-1994 Parque Central provide more privacy and
seclusion. But the differences observed in the interaction and movement patterns
express more than just the design of the space: here is an example of the
landscape architecture and the cultural rules reinforcing each, and it is difficult
to segment out the extent to which each playing a determinant role.

Behavioral maps
Although the plazas are very different in history, design, and representation,
the daily activities that occur there are similar. Yet the people who perform
these activities are again quite different. These different groups of people defi-
ne the public space of the plaza in terms of their distinct social worlds. This
difference is significant in that these users and their distinct social worlds
socially construct an out-of-awareness (non-discursive) boundary maintaining
system. For instance older men and women, female prostitutes, shoeshine
men, and gamblers are almost exclusively found in Parque Central. On the
other hand, tourists, young women and children, students in uniforms, teen-agers
with boomboxes, and North American pensioners are almost exclusively found
on the Plaza de la Cultura.
The following description of a sunny week-day in January, 1987 illustrates
the similarities and differences. Observations were made continuously and in
timed samples recorded on behavioral maps from 8:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m.,
although the majority of activity occurred during the late morning, afternoon
and early evening. A few of the behavioral maps are included to illustrate the

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42 Setha M. Low

points made, however, the bulk of the maps were used as the data base for this
summary. The maps were drawn on 8 inch x 11 inch plaza plans using black
ink and colored pencils to record various ongoing behaviors and locations of
individuals. Since the colored pencil data could not reproduced here, circles and
written descriptions are used in an attempt to convey the richer data of the
originals.

Parque Central
In the Parque Central morning is a time for men to sit and read the
newspaper. By 10:00 a.m. almost every bench is filled with an adult man reading
his paper (See Map 9). The shoeshine business in the northeast corner is slow,
and vendors of fruit and the lottery are not doing much business. The passers-by
are mainly on their way to the bus or shopping. The most active person is the
municipal employee who sweeps the sidewalks and picks up fallen leaves and
trash.
By noon the tempo has picked-up (See Map 10). The men on their benches
are joined by friends with animated voices as the walkways fill with men and
women meeting for lunch or catching the bus home. The healer starts his
routine in the northwest corner and the missionaries set up under the arbor.
One group of elderly men leave the Parque Central at this time to go home for
lunch and siesta and do not return. Others leave, but will return after their
lunch. As one seventy year old man said: The plaza is now my place of
employment now that no longer work. I am underfoot at home. The house is
my wifes domain, and I feel better being out of the house during the day.
In the afternoon, a few older women appear bringing their children to the
library, shopping with friends, or resting from a busy morning in town (See Map
11). The shoeshine business is at its peak as middle-class men stop to get their
shoes shined on their way back to work. Sometimes, during the mid-afternoon,
Vicky begins his routine with a guitar and hat telling sordid jokes on the kiosk
platform. Vendors of ice cream, peanuts and snowcones circulate along the
edge of the crowd. The police walk by in pairs, stop and watch for awhile, and
then continue on their patrol of the street.
By 4:00 p.m. most of the older men have left and young and middle-age
couples meet in Parque Central for coffee and/or to take the bus home. The
number of women is the highest at this time, still only making up about twenty to

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Cultura in the modern city 43

thirty percent of the population, but very different from the all male reading
period of the morning. At 6:00 p.m. the light begins to fade and the air is cooler
(See Map 12). A new group of vendors with carts of hot corn or skewered beef
appear on the edge of the sidewalk. As couples circumambulant around the
kiosk, they stop to buy food and talk to the vendors drawn by the smell of the
sizzling grilled beef.
At 7:00 p.m. it becomes quiet. The shoeshine men have left for the day,
and only a few couples, some single young men and the vendors remain. If it is
a nice evening, more people will wander by on their way to the Rex Cinema or
to have drink in the Soda Palace. A small group of street kids run by trying to
beg money from a passing gringo and tired young prostitutes sit under the
arbor waiting for business. By now the lines of the buses are not as long and
tired workers wait in groups talking about the day or buying lottery tickets from
the corner vendors. Later in the evening, between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m., Parque
Central is almost completely deserted except for one or two solitary men sitting
on the benches or walking slowly down the paths. Even later, men from the
countryside, drunk and sleepy may find their way from the cheap bars surrounding
the central market to sleep relatively undisturbed on the park benches until
morning.

Plaza de la Cultura
In the Plaza de la Cultura the day also starts slowly. During the morning
there are very few people, usually just a couple of men or male tourists reading
a newspaper in the sun, and a group of green uniformed plaza employees who
sweep and empty the trash cans. Sunday is a little busier with the artisan
market for the tourists, but even then there is little activity.
About noon the older North Americans, known as gringos verdes, or
green Yankees, appear in their baseball hats, sunburns and smiles (See Map
13). They will stay for most of the afternoon waiting for girls or watching those
that walk by. These men are a mixture of regular tourists who come each
winter to enjoy the weather and pensionados, North Americans who have
elected to retire to Costa Rican fulltime, and who claim tax and other benefits
from the Costa Rican government with their guaranteed monthly pension from
the United States or Canada. Students, young office workers, and friends
sometimes stop to have their lunch in the plaza or buy ice cream at the near-by

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44 Setha M. Low

Pops and sit a moment to finish eating. Tourists are in the cafe having lunch or
wandering in front of the National Theater buying souvenirs or taking pictures.
By 2:00 p.m. the pace quickens as more and more office workers return
to work walking through on their way from the bus stop. Young mothers and
children stop to look at the fountain or to play with the pigeons during a shopping
outing. Students, finished with classes stop to meet friends while they are still
in their school uniforms. On some afternoons a clown and his wife/assistant, or
a Peruvian musical group may come by. The clown performs almost in the
center of the plaza attracting children and their parents as well as the downtown
office crowd. The Peruvian singers play in the tourist area and draw a crowd
of tourists and young adult Costa Ricans. Later an evangelical group with
guitars, singing popular songs in praise of Jesus might entertain a bored teen-age
crowd.
At 4:00 p.m. the gringos leave for their afternoon coffee and rest, and
many of the families start on their way home (See Map 14). By 5:00 p.m. or so,
however, teen-agers in blue jeans begin to appear (See Map 15). They play
music on portable radios or tapedecks, dance, and even start soccer games on
the far end of the main open space. They are the major occupants until the
National Theater opens at 8:00 p.m. Sometimes there are special evening events,
such as a tribute to local high school bands or a radio interview of teen-ages
who are there. If there is no performance at the National Theater, the plaza
becomes quiet by 8:00 p.m. as the teen-agers leave to go on their evening
destinations. Later in the evening, after 9:00 p.m. single men, gather on the
lower plaza near the theater ticket window to meet and talk. Groups of young
men often wander by, or stop to smoke marijuana. In a few cases policemen
passed by and arrested one of the young men either for drinking or having
drugs on him. The encounters, however, were brief and carried out in hushed
tones. The atmosphere in the lower plaza is more relaxed than frightening, as
the men share their thoughts and wait to meet friends.
It is apparent from these two descriptions that the activities of reading,
talking, eating, and meeting friends are the same. Both plazas are dominated by
men and their related activities of reading, sitting, watching and talking in the
morning, and accommodate women, families and children, and couples in the
afternoon. They both have vendors who sell flowers, food and trinkets; people
who provide personal services; entertainers who sing or clown; and preachers
of various denominations. They are both surrounded by cafes where users can

Horizontes Antropolgicos, Porto Alegre, ano 6, n. 13, p. 31-64, jun. 2000

Cultura in the modern city 45

go to get inside from the rain or sun or where non-users can simply survey the
scene. They both have a small number of people who want to lay claim to the
space, but who are considered by some to be undesirable occupants of the
space such as beggars, prostitutes, homeless people, drug dealers and gamblers.
Police who patrol and maintenance people who clean up the trash are also
there representing the municipal social order.
What seems more important, however, is not that the activities are the
same although this sameness may indicate some common cultural response
to the use of public space but that the activities take on such different forms
and meanings, and are performed by such different people. For example, the
cafes of Parque Central are populated only by men--when a woman enters
one of these cafes it cases a minor stir. The cafes on the Plaza de la Cultura,
on the other hand, are frequented by both men and women, usually tourists and
upper or middle class Costa Ricans. The prostitutes in Parque Central are
young female Costa Ricans who are professionals and who solicit men of all
ages and nationalities. The young women who meet men in the Plaza de la
Cultura, however, call themselves tourras, which I was told means that they
engage sex for a nice meal or clothes, but not for money or as a professional
occupation. The tourras are involved mostly with older men, often North
American pensioners or tourists, who come to Costa Rica searching for very
young women, and for a sexual, and sometimes loving relationship. The
expectations of both older men and young women vary from romantic to
mercenary, and the reality of the relationships vary as well.
Other examples of the contrast in the expression of social activities include
what is sold: tourist items, popcorn, and balloons in the Plaza de la Cultura and
lottery tickets, food and newspapers in Parque Central; the difference in the
green uniformed maintenance men in the plaza and the municipal maintenance
mans rag shirt in the Parque Central; the presence of a large number of
foreigners in the Plaza de la Cultura and the absence of many foreigners in
Parque Central. The contrast can be summarized as the emerging social
divisions of young and old, foreign and local, lower and middle class, and male
and female now spatially and temporally distributed across the two plazas.
These differences in expression reiterate the historical and physical
comparison, that of the separation of an identification with modern North
American or international culture in the Plaza de la Cultura and the maintenance
of a more traditional Costa Rican identity in the Parque Central. Taken together,

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46 Setha M. Low

yet separated and bounded by their difference, the two plazas express the
contemporary dimensions, contradictions, and tensions of Costa Rican culture.
The new plaza built only one block northeast of Parque Central was to
be a reflection of contemporary culture, based on different values and by its
difference created a symbolic space, a spatial boundary between the images
of Costa Rican cultura produced in these two places. The social boundary that
separates these two worlds is one that is constructed more by the contrast than
by any physical or social barrier that exists between the two plazas. In fact, one
would think that the shoeshine men, the pensioners, the couples and the vendors
would travel between the two plazas depending on weather, business and amount
of crime or disturbance that might exist in Parque Central. Yet, the residents
of Parque Central remain firmly in place and regard the new plaza as suspect.
They say that the new plaza is an uncomfortable place where the wrong
people hang out, while the residents of the Plaza de la Cultura describe Par-
que Central as dark and dangerous. One explanation of this separation of the
two places is that the new plaza, in fact, was created to reconstitute Costa
Rican culture with a different image in an attempt to disenfranchise the older
more traditional representation of social life presented daily in Parque Central.
Thus, the contrast between the two plazas is significant; their histories,
design, and users are in many ways distinct. Within the Parque Central there
is very little contested space in that a long-term pattern of users and activities
has built up over the years. New activities such as the Christian healing are
accommodated either at the edges of the plaza or through the reallocation of
space in time. The Plaza de la Cultura, however, is still a highly contested
arena; tourism and the Costa Rican image of cultura conflict with the nightly
appropriation by cruising. The separation between the two plazas is a cultu-
ral gulf with older retired and working men dominating one scene and students,
young women, women and children, tourists and teen-agers recreating on the
other. Both are Costa Rican representations of cultura, however, they represent
different versions of that cultural goal. There is an invisible boundary between
them, yet, their commonalities link them. Culture is not some homogeneous set
of rules for life, but is made up of conflicting and fluctuating images and
aspirations.

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Cultura in the modern city 47

Conclusion
The behavioral maps complete the time-space descriptions begun with the
population counts and movement maps. While the movement maps describe
paths that link individuals walking with gender segregation in the Parque Cen-
tral, the behavioral maps record individual projects such as men shining shoes,
elderly pensioners meeting to talk, or teen-agers playing soccer. The accretions
of multiple paths and projects located in space and time link the individual
activities to age, gender, and class differences found in the two plazas. Over
time these differences become naturalized, as has been argued by Bourdieu
(1977), and perceived as social reality. Thus, individual paths and projects are
transformed into cultural norms for behavior re-enacted in daily social practices.
These microgeographies help to demonstrate how plaza meanings are
socially constructed through historically constituted social practices, political
ideologies, users behaviors, group activities, and urban design to represent and
reproduce different aspects of Costa Rican culture. This social construction
occurs through the historical and sociopolitical forces that created each plaza
and through the paths and projects that create the distinct social worlds presented
here. These differences are reinforced by the social practices of the people
who inhabit these spaces.
The social and spatial boundaries that separate these two spheres that are
so physically close, yet so culturally different, are social constructions and
meaningful at the level of lived experience of everyday life. They provide clues
as to the significant schisms in what otherwise seems like a very homogeneous
culture.
For example, culturally ideal gender roles in which the woman/housewife
stays at home, and the man/provider goes out to work and to the public realm of
the plaza are breaking down with women needing and/or wanting to work in
response to changes in the political economy. The cultural norms of Parque
Central restricted womens attendance to Sundays and late afternoons
accompanied by their partners or children, leaving them without a public space.
Thus, Plaza de la Cultura has become an important alternative space and a
means of expressing this new cultural definition of gender roles.
In a similar vein, the social status of being a teen-ager has become more
important with the influx of North American capital and culture that includes
age-specific modes of dress, music, and behavior. Before the 1970s most teen-

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48 Setha M. Low

agers were working adults. I remember interviewing adolescents from 1972

through 1974 who said that after the sixth grade (age 12 or 13), that they were
expected to go to work. In the countryside and in very poor urban households
this expectation may still hold, but in the city most San Jos teen-agers go to
school and many hang-out to meet their friends. The Plaza de la Cultura
provides the new public space necessary for this change in culturally proscribed
behavior, and its open design allows for the possibility of dancing and playing
soccer in the urban center.
The increasing social divisions and socioeconomic inequality resulting
from the impact of global market forces, the influx of North American capi-
tal, local economic crises, and shifts in modes of production also have resulted
in segmenting and redefining the Costa Rican class system. This segmentation
can be seen in the differences in cultural ideals reflected in the notion of
cultura. The traditional myth that Costa Rica es diferente, that Costa Rica
was historically a country of small farmers that produced an egalitarian class
structure, has been disrupted by obvious differences in wealth, increasing
segregation of residential neighborhoods, increasing unemployment and
underemployment, and dismantling of the legislated safety net of social security,
basic food subsidies, and other social welfare programs. Older Costa Ricans
will still tell you that we are all middle-class if you ask about class structure,
but increasingly young people and the disenfranchised point out that things
are changing, and that while everyone may be the same politically, that they
no longer are in terms of wealth. These changes in class are also expressed
in the discourse concerning behavior and activities in the plazas and are
captured in the cultural metaphor, and social sanction, of cultura. Thus, class,
gender, and age differences separate these two social and spatially bounded
domains, as well as the cultural notion of cultura.

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Cultura in the modern city 49

Acknowledgements
The research for this article was made possible by a Fulbright Research
Fellowship, a grant-in-aid from the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research, and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. I
would like to thank Vicky Risner for her help both in the field and in
conceptualizing the movements maps. I would also like to thank Stephane
Tonnelat for producing the maps for this publication. Parts of this analysis are
discussed in my just published book, On the Plaza: The Politics and Culture of
Public Space by the University of Texas Press. I would like to thank Ruben
Oliven for his interest and support of my plaza work over the past fifteen years.

References
BOURDIEU, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1977.
PRED, Alan. Structuration, biography formation, and knowledge. Environment
and Planning D. Society and Space, v. 2, p. 251-275, 1984.
RICHARDSON, Miles. La plaza como lugar social: el papel del lugar en el
encuentro humano. Vinculos: Revista de Antropologa del Museo Nacional de
Costa Rica, v. 4, p. 1-20, 1978.
RICHARDSON, Miles. Culture and the urban stage: the nexus of setting,
behavior, and image in urban places. In: ALTMAN, I.; RAPOPORT, A.;
WOLHWILL, J. F. Human behavior and environment. 1980. p. 209-242.
RICHARDSON, Miles. Being-in-the-market and being-in-the-plaza: material
culture and the construction of social reality in Spanish America. American
Ethnologist, v. 9, p. 421-436, 1982.

Horizontes Antropolgicos, Porto Alegre, ano 6, n. 13, p. 31-64, jun. 2000

50 Setha M. Low

-raised pavement

Cathedral
-flower stall
-bus shelter

Calle Central
-benches

Avenida 2

Avenida 4
Kiosk
Parque Central

arbor

Calle 2

Horizontes Antropolgicos, Porto Alegre, ano 6, n. 13, p. 31-64, jun. 2000

 Plaza de la Cultura -single and double cement benches
-pipe bench
-lamp poles
-grass
-air duct
-skylight
Cultura in the modern city

Avenida Central
Gran Hotel

Fountain

Entrance to the
National Gallery

Horizontes Antropolgicos, Porto Alegre, ano 6, n. 13, p. 31-64, jun. 2000

Calle 7

Box office

National Theater
51
52 Setha M. Low

female
10 A.M., clear
Movement

male
Parque Central

Horizontes Antropolgicos, Porto Alegre, ano 6, n. 13, p. 31-64, jun. 2000

Cultura in the modern city 53

female
Movement
NOON
male
Parque Central

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54 Setha M. Low

female
Movement
6 P.M.
male
Parque Central

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Cultura in the modern city 55

female
Wednesday NOON
Cloudy, just rained
Movement

male
Plaza de la Cultura

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56 Setha M. Low

female
Wednesday 4 P.M.
Movement
RainY
male
Plaza de la Cultura

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Cultura in the modern city 57

female
Wednesday 6 P.M.
Clear, cool
Movement

male
Plaza de la Cultura

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 58
Parque Central Thrusday morning
10 A.M.
Hot, sunny

almost empty gringo

shoesshine
group men
moved to SE
children
eating

gringos
couple

men sitting retirees

NW group
retirees

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Setha M. Low
 Parque Central
Thrusday NOON
Hot, humid

preacher shoeshine
healing men
Cultura in the modern city

men
watching
young couple young men

flowers
group of men flowers
more men

religious couple
meeting young women

food vendor old couple

German waiting women waiting
busy corner
old men

Horizontes Antropolgicos, Porto Alegre, ano 6, n. 13, p. 31-64, jun. 2000

man sleeping retirees
59
 60
Parque Central Wednesday
2 P.M.
Cloudy, mild, humid

2 women women waiting

2 kids
playing
vendor young men
singing
erosion shoeshine men
shoeshine men shoeshine men
flowers comes by
book vendor girls doing
homework
woman sleeping
clown
6 men standing crowd
busy phones
second clown
men
disfigured men
old couple
shoeshine men old disturbed
men
old men

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bus stop man sleeping
Setha M. Low
 Parque Central Friday night
6 p.M.
Clear, cool

children couple
playing making-out
2 policemen
men watching
Cultura in the modern city

men eating
lovers girl meets
lovers boy
waiting for young people
telephones meet
lovers
young people
lovers
men sitting
girl leaves
police

shoeshine men couple

and friends
family
couple

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61
 62
Plaza de la Cultura Thursday
NOON
Warm

teenagers
couples with
young man eating radio
ice cream cone children
chasing
Indian attempted pigeons
pick up
two gringos
looking
gringo
watching

Horizontes Antropolgicos, Porto Alegre, ano 6, n. 13, p. 31-64, jun. 2000

folksong
group
surrounded
young by
girls people
hammock +
whistle
vendors
Setha M. Low
 Plaza de la Cultura Friday afternoon
4 P.M.
Beautiful weather
Cultura in the modern city

mother and
child

teenagers
men couple
mansitting
reading watching
children
a paper playing lovers
young
group of family
two men talking
girls
talking old couple with
young umbrella
woman
group watching
old man

Horizontes Antropolgicos, Porto Alegre, ano 6, n. 13, p. 31-64, jun. 2000

lovers
police

Peruvian
music group
63
 64
Plaza de la Cultura
Friday , Saturday
6 P.M.
Clear

bubbleman beginning organization of the

parade
corn on watchers watchers woman with
the cob children
telephone
kids Christians

children teenagers
playing with
comic telephones
(audience radio
students underground
~ 200)
preparing
for
parade rs
age
teen g h t
single men watchers c a u nking
dri
by ice
pol

Horizontes Antropolgicos, Porto Alegre, ano 6, n. 13, p. 31-64, jun. 2000

lovers lovers

lovers lovers
Setha M. Low